Innovating the scenario of scientific publishing in design: designing “living publications”

This article presents an ongoing research project aiming at innovating the modalities and formats of scientific and academic publication of design research. The digital transformation and the open access paradigm have a considerable impact on the circulation of high-quality scientific production at global level: the challenge is to achieve innovative forms of authoritative, high-impact and effective scholarly communication, pursued with a multiscale and mixed media strategy, in order to guarantee an extended impact, while maintaining rigour and authority. In this context the scientific publication of design is taking on new forms and objectives too, so the design discipline can be a pivotal field for the experimentation and discussion of new scientific publication formats for scientific research. The article presents the proposal of Living Publications, that, stemming from a case studies research, supports the envisioning of future scenarios of scientific publishing and the development of the features of an experimental prototype in the design domain.